One Man's Trash
by Dreary Somebody
Summary: OLD STORY. The Kazekage had three children, all useless. Even in death, can he ever hope to forgive them? Rated for angst and content that could be considered mature. Characters are Gaara and Kankuro because YKK isn't a choice. Sort of longdrabbleish.


**I wrote this for no reason. I was bored. I started. I finished. I kinda like it. I hate the flipping Yondaime Kazekage, though. He's a jerk. This is pretty angsty, too, isn't it? Yes, it is. I'm tired. I don't own Naruto. Blah-blah-blah-blah-blehhh.**

There were a million words for him. _Gaara _was only the first. There was _monster. Freak. Weirdo. Demon. Mutation. _None of these meant much. The ones that hurt, the ones that stung—there were _brother. Son. Nephew. _Because of those, he was no longer a thing, no longer just a nameless being that could be ignored, he was a disease. He infected the people who came in contact with him, turned them away and against the public, turned them into gruesome images of himself. Because of those words, _Yondaime Kazekage _was no longer a respectable title: it was a trash title. _See there, boys, there's the waste that ruined our village with that devil son of his. _

Slowly, everything was being stripped away from him. The first time his wife's belly had swollen, he held his breath for nine months waiting for the strong baby boy to pop out. When finally, she gave birth to a blonde angel, she laughed and cried and smiled and was filled with joy. Maybe it was because her tiny little girl was beautiful and healthy and alert.

Maybe it was spite-filled happiness. Maybe she laughed at her husband's sorrow, cried at his pleasure, and smiled because she had brought a disappointing _female _into the world.

The second time, he was confident that lady luck would smile on him; lightning could not strike the same spot twice. He would have his shinobi of a son. He would have his Godaime Kazekage.

Just as his patience began to run out, May rolled around, and it seemed that his answers may come gift wrapped in a black-eyed infant that looked remarkably like himself. It was excitedly that he rocked the child to sleep, watched his first steps, listened to his first word—_hungry!—_and stroked his yellow footsie pajamas, wondering when blue-and-white Kazekage robes would replace them. However, he failed to see an obvious truth:

Fate is not a simple thing.

Perhaps it was when the lazy lump of a boy failed for the millionth time to become conscious before nine in the morning. It could've been when the chubbiness around his middle could no longer be identified as "baby fat." There was even the chance that it was when the leader of the puppet troupe took one look at him and said _that one's a puppetmaster, he is. _Whatever the reason, whatever the time, cold, harsh reality overpowered the Yondaime's fantasies: the girl had a better chance of becoming Kazekage that the weakling his wife had given him.

Yet another chance was gone.

Still, one more remained: the Shukaku, the one-tailed sand demon, sleeping in its teapot prison, and the instant the idea crossed his mind he knew he must seize the opportunity: another baby was on the way, and this one would be not a human but a Jinchuuriki. The word sounded like music, like a way to right the wrongs that had come before him, a female and a sissy. He could feel that he would finally succeed; finally, a leader—a weapon—a perfect being would be his son, and people would point and say _that man over there's the father of the most powerful shinobi ever, you know. That kid won the whole world just for his dad, can you believe it?_

His beloved Kurara's life would be a small price to pay for the most powerful tool alive.

So consumed he was in his imaginings that he never noticed Temari when she blew her birthday cake halfway across the room into her mother's face. He didn't see Kankuro learn how to make chopsticks jump from her sister's hand and shoot up her nose with a flick of his wrist. While Yashamaru played and laughed and told stories, their father was a distant figure. They would have forgotten him if he had disappeared. His wife, however, was different.

He thought the first night without her would be the hardest. It was difficult, but somehow a redheaded boy, a boy with dark rings around his eyes who never slept but stared at the ceiling, saw him through the night. It—because he couldn't bring himself to think of it as a person—looked at the sand as if it were a living thing, and the Yondaime knew that all had gone as planned.

Until morning.

Whatever small hole left in his heart had filled, and he almost smiled as he walked down the stairs to where Yashamaru should have been making ramen and chatting about dreams of leprechauns and giant pickles.

But he _wasn't there._

He looked at the table, where Kankuro should have been stuffing food in his plate like he hadn't eaten in days.

But he _wasn't eating._

He stared at the chair next to his rubbish middle child, where his stupid daughter should have been screwing her face up in disgust at various things her brother was doing.

But she _wasn't even watching him._

The Kazekage faltered, and in the second it took for him to concentrate, a dreadful thing happened. His son pushed away his leftover pork, opened his mouth as wide as possible, curled his hands into tiny fists, and whined the impossible words:

"Where my mamma?"

It had, of course, never crossed his mind that, where he was indifferent, his children would care. Temari gave a few stiff sobs and a look that plainly asked _why won't you tell us? _The younger one just looked confused, upset—and the father had no idea what to do. None at all.

So he told the truth. He managed to leave out the fact that it was his fault. He skipped over the part where he stuffed a demon down his son's throat. He even cruised over the tears of hundreds of friends because they were just _people _and _they didn't matter. _Not anymore. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not in five years or ten. The only thing that mattered now were the last words a dying mother had choked out: a wish, and with it, a name.

_Call it Gaara._

-----

And now, _now, _now he had failed again. Now he was nothing, a broken remote designed for a boy that couldn't be controlled. Couldn't be killed. Couldn't be calmed. Not by the weak middle one who feared him so much. Not by the girl, the older one, whose reasoning was lost in his cold eyes. Not by the father because the father was rubbish.

Orochimaru, the dirty snake, had been like a drop of water for a dying man, but before he could drink it, it had manifested itself into a dirty, foul imitation of life. Now, here he lay, like a doll tossed aside, like Kankuro and Temari, his worthless weapons. Maybe, if he was lucky, they would improve, just a little, and restore an ounce of honor to their family—more likely, however, they would bring more shame.

He felt his heartbeats lessen; they seemed to be getting farther away, but he didn't care. He was quickly composing a will that would never be written—or more, a letter, for he didn't have enough time left to name all his possessions.

_Temari, I hope you grow up and get a little prettier. I hope you find a good husband. I hope you tell your children about their grandfather. I hope you leave out the bit about me killing your mother._

_Kankuro, I hope you live past the age of eighteen, preferably with all of your limbs. You'll probably never have kids. At least you'll have more time to train. Maybe you'll get a little less hopeless._

_Gaara, I hope_

And that was as far as he got. There was really nothing he could think anymore, nothing to hope about his youngest son. His mind drew blanks, and didn't bother to fill them in. It was shutting down; he couldn't see his own thoughts in the fog. The ground was warm and soft like a pillow, wrapping around him like the arms of a wife sent to the grave with a teapot, and he closed his eyes...

If you looked out of the corner of your eye, he could have appeared so content that he may have seemed to be asleep. One could suppose that, in his unending slumber, he was busily dreaming of a stupid girl, a rubbish child, and a freak.

One would probably be right.


End file.
